Early life

Whitaker
was born in Longview, Texas and his
family moved to South Central
Los Angeles due to
racism in 1965, when he was four. His father, Forest
Whitaker, Jr., was an insurance salesman and the son of novelist
Forest Whitaker, Sr. His mother, Laura Francis (née Smith), was a special education
teacher who put herself through college and earned two Masters
degrees while raising her children. Whitaker has two younger
brothers, Kenn and Damon, and an older sister, Deborah.

As a
teenager, Whitaker commuted from Carson to wealthy Palisades High School on LA's
West Side. There,
he was all-league defensive tackle on the football team
quarterbacked by Jay Schroeder, a
future NFL player. While in
high school, he also took voice lessons, performed in musicals, and
caught the "acting bug"; his first role as an actor was the lead in
Dylan Thomas' play, Under Milk Wood. Whitaker graduated
from "Pali High" in 1979.

Whitaker
then attended Cal Poly Pomona on a football scholarship, but left due to a
debilitating back injury when he was hurt in training by defensive
end Manny Duran.He was accepted to the Music Conservatory at
the University of Southern California to study opera as a tenor, and subsequently was
accepted into the University's Drama Conservatory. He
graduated from USC in 1982. He also earned a scholarship to the Berkeley,
California branch of the Drama Studio London.

Whitaker played a serene, pigeon-raising, bushido-following, mob hit man
in Ghost Dog: The
Way of the Samurai, a 1999 film written and directed by
Jim Jarmusch. Many consider this to
have been a "definitive role" for Whitaker. In a manner similar to
his preparation for Bird, he again immersed himself in his
character's world—he studied Eastern philosophy and meditated for
long hours "to hone his inner spiritual hitman." Jarmusch has told
interviewers that he developed the title character with Whitaker in
mind; the New York Times
review of the film observed that "[I]t's hard to think of another
actor who could play a cold-blooded killer with such warmth and
humanity."

Whitaker next appeared in what has been called one of the "worst films ever made," the
2000 production of Battlefield Earth, based on
the novel of the same name by L.Ron Hubbard. The film was widely
criticized as a notorious commercial and critical disaster.
However, Whitaker's performance was lauded by the film's director,
Roger Christian, who
commented that, "Everybody's going to be very surprised" by
Whitaker, who "found this huge voice and laugh." BattleField
Earth "won" seven Razzie
Awards; Whitaker was nominated for Worst Supporting Actor, but
lost to his co-star, Barry
Pepper.

Whitaker's greatest success to date is the 2006 film, The Last King of
Scotland. To prepare for his role as dictator Idi Amin, Whitaker gained 50 pounds, learned to
play the accordion, and immersed himself
in research. He read books about Amin, watched news and documentary
footage, and spent time in Uganda meeting with Amin's friends,
relatives, generals, and victims; he also learned Swahili and mastered Amin's East African accent.

In 2008, Whitaker appeared as a business man known only as
Happiness, who likes butterflies, in the film The Air I Breathe, as rogue police
captain Jack Wander in Street
Kings, and heroic tourist Howard Lewis in Vantage Point.

Television work

In 1985, Whitaker played a bully who loses his girlfriend to Arnold
on the Diff'rent Strokes
episode "Bully for Arnold". That same year, Whitaker also played
the part of a comic book salesman in the Amazing Stories episode "Gather Ye
Acorns".

Whitaker returned to television in 2006 when he joined the cast of
FX's police serial The Shield, as Lieutenant Jon Kavanaugh, who was determined to prove
that the lead character, Vic Mackey, is a
dirty cop. He received rave reviews for his performance —
Variety called it a
"crackling-good guest stint" — and he reprised the role in the
show's 2007 season.

In the fall of 2006, Whitaker started a multi-episode story arc on
ER as Curtis Ames, a man who
comes into the ER with a cough, but quickly faces the long-term
consequences of a paralyzing stroke; he then
takes out his anger on Doctors Luka
Kovač and Abby Lockhart. Whitaker
received a 2007 Emmy nomination for his
performance on the series. Also in 2006, Whitaker appeared in
T.I.'s video "Live in the Sky" alongside
Jamie Foxx.

Whitaker hosted Saturday Night
Live, which featured his singing skills in several
sketches, including a sketch about a singing waiter who can sing
notes that can only be heard by dogs.

Whitaker has lent his voice to three episodes of the animated
sitcom American Dad! in 2008
and 2009, as the recurring character Ron Turlington. The character
parodies Whitaker's performances in The Shield, and is
seen in the episodes "Meter Made",
"Chimdale" and "Live and Let Fry".

Producing and directing

Whitaker branched out into producing and directing in the 1990s. He
co-produced and co-starred in A Rage in Harlem in 1991. He
made his directorial debut with a grim film about inner-city gun
violence, Strapped, for HBO in 1993. In 1995, he directed his first feature, Waiting to Exhale, which was based on
the Terry McMillan novel of the same
name. Roger Ebert observed that the tone
of the film resembled Whitaker's own acting style: "measured,
serene, confident." Whitaker also directed co-star Whitney Houston's music video of the movie's
theme song ("Shoop Shoop").

Recent honors

In addition to the numerous awards Whitaker won for his performance
in The Last King of Scotland, he has also received several
other honors. In September 2006, the 10th Annual Hollywood Film
Festival presented him with its "Hollywood Actor of the Year
Award," calling him "one of Hollywood's most accomplished actors."
He was honored at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival
2007, where he received the American Riviera Award. Previously, in
2005, the Deauville (France) Festival of American Film paid tribute
to him.

Personal life

In 1996, Whitaker married actress Keisha Nash, whom he met on the
set of Blown Away.
The Whitakers have four children: two daughters together (Sonnet
and True), his son (Ocean) from a previous relationship, and her
daughter (Autumn) from a previous relationship. Whitaker studies
yoga and has a black belt in karate. On
Inside the Actors Studio,
Whitaker said that a genetic test indicated he was of Igbo descent on his father's side,
and Akan descent on his mothers
side.

Whitaker's left eye ptosis has been
called "intriguing" by some critics and "gives him a sleepy,
contemplative look." Whitaker has explained that the condition is
hereditary and that he has considered having surgery to correct it,
not for cosmetic reasons but because it affects his vision.

On April
6, 2009, Whitaker was given a chieftancy title in Imo State, Nigeria.
Whitaker, who was named a chief among the Igbo people of southeastern Nigeria, was given
the title Nwannedinamba of Nkwerre, which means A
Brother in a Foreign Land.